all in this together. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews back in washington. let me start tonight with this. the america that voted the other day is big, it is diverse, it is generous of heart. this is a country of old european roots, families that came here from africa in servitude as far back as four centuries ago. of new arriving groups from the rest of the americas and from south asia and from the asian pacific. we are a country of women who were created equal who stand by their rights to equality and respect and personal dignity not to be spoken about as if they are apart from the conversation,

apart from a country that honors individual decision making. they're no longer sent into the other room while men discuss the big questions over brandy and cigars, nor are gay people -- no longer are they the other, people to be joked about, sequestered off as if they're not of us, deeply a part of our american family. yes, i said it, this was a generous election. forget this talk of sharp elbows, every man for himself, grab your tax cut and head out on your own and for your self. all the nastiness we heard only served to excite and energize the people it was aimed at, only served to turn off the people who heard it being said and said to themselves. none of that for me. that sounds like uncle what's his name stuff, i don't buy it, i'm not going to buy it. so we go off, this country of ours, to a new era of hope. a time to work and think and keep on deciding. we ain't going back because as we decided on tuesday, back just isn't what it was supposed to be, was it? joining me is republican strategist john feehery and

democratic strategist bob shrum. did you hear that, feehery? >> yes, sir. >> okay. good. the republican party can no longer count on white voters to carry them to victory in national elections. the white proportion dropped two points, from 72 puff -- actually went to 72% from 74%. while the minority percentage steadily is rising. here is how the 2012 election broke down by racial group. president obama won just 39% of the white vote down from 49% 43% last time, but he outperforms by so much in other demographic groups, he overcomes the white voter deficit. obama got 93% of the black vote on tuesday, 71% of the latino vote. by the way, that's a big difference from the way "w" did it. "w" did pretty well among latino voters, and he got 73% of the asian vote. bob shrum, i want to start with this. we all know looking around and who we know, the country is changing. a lot more people moving to this country from the south, less so

from europe, more from asia, south asia, india, pakistan, from the far east, the asian pacific. this country is getting to be more like the world. >> i think part of the tea party reaction, the give our country back or take our country back, is a reflection of people's paranoia about the changing composition of the country. we're going to become a majority nonwhite nation. white men are now only 33% of the electorate, and that's the heart of republican strength. what's happened in the election is you had a gender chasm, an african-american chasm, you had a hispanic chasm, you had a chasm with young voters, and

republicans can't win the white house under those circumstances. i think they're going to have to rethink this. now, democrats, chris, you remember we had to rethink how we did things and how we reached out -- >> i'm thinking about -- let me give this to john. let me ask you a question, john, about this. we're doing this very ethnically and to me it is a little uncomfortable but it is the world we have to look at politically. i don't like talking about race. we're all in the same race. i prefer the word ethnicity. let me ask you about young people. i am a skeptic. i agree with joe scarborough, something he said years ago. you will never win an election if you count on young people carrying you to victory. this time the people 18 to 29 outperformed their extraordinary performance in the last election. four years ago. they represented a larger percentage of the electorate than they did last time. they got off their butts, whatever they were doing that day, 1 tuesday, and they voted. they must like the future because they're voting for the party that's identifying ethnically with the future. what do you think? >> a couple points, 9 million fewer people voted for barack obama in this election than the last election, and mitt romney did not beat john mccain's totals in this election. both of those numbers are absolutely extraordinary. it says a lot about the romney campaign and its inability to excite its own base and get people out to vote for its own side. i don't disagree -- >> wasn't anger enough? >> it certainly -- i think it was disgust with both sides.

i think there were a large portion of voters who decided they weren't going to vote for obama and they didn't feel comfortable with romney for a variety of reasons. i agree with the basic premise that going forward in the future we need to be more culturally diverse as a party. we need to go after different segments of the population because obviously the country is changing, and we all get that. in this particular election, there was another story being told. barack obama was there for the taking. we could have beat him. we just had to have john mccain numbers, and we didn't have it. >> who was your candidate that would have done better than romney? >> jeb bush. >> jeb bush. interesting. you're sort of an establishment republican. >> yeah, of course. i'm not a tea party. i will say though i think the tea party reaction was a reaction not to what bob was saying, but a reaction to big government, much of what -- >> you're -- okay. look, i think jeb is the best of that family in many ways, but let me tell you something. it's not a bad family, but he's certainly the best of them. let me tell you the problem with

what you said, feary, and gave away. this is a dangerous thing you have given. one of my little speech notes i give when i talk to groups is just think about the country we're in. from the time i paid attention to politics in 1952 to 2004, the same three names showed up on every republican ticket, nixon, let's see, bush, then filling in the blanks, bob dole and back by popular demand in '96 bob dole. now you're saying the solution to the republican future is bush. it's a legacy. can't you broaden it out beyond the anglo-saxon names bush and dole and nixon. can't you get out wider? >> chris, let's not kid ourselves. the front-runner for the democrats is clinton. that's not exactly a new name. >> you got me. you got me! feehery, you got me. >> jeb bush, and you said it earlier, jeb bush understands the diversity of the country. >> right. >> he's pushed back against the republican party -- >> he got me.

>> -- in terms of immigration. he thinks the republicans have to move on this, but there are two big problems here. one, if the party performs historically the way it does in midterm elections when you have a president in his second term, there will be a lot of people on the right who will succeed and they will go back into 2016 just the way they went into 2012. you will then have a primary situation where what you have to do to get the nomination in the primaries is at odds with what you have to do to win the general. there will be a civil war in the republican party. it's going to be, i'd broaden it out a little, create a little more diversity, between the jeb bush/chris christie side of this ledger and the paul ryan/mike huckabee side of the ledger. >> richard viguerie, the direct mail expert, he pioneered the field of political direct mail back in the '80s. he put out a statement as a bugle call. i think you're on the other side of the fight, john. quote -- mitt romney's loss was the death rattle of the establishment gop. far from signaling a rejection of the tea party or grassroots conservatives, the disaster of 2012 signals the beginning of

the battle to take over the republican party and the opportunity to establish the gop as the party of small government constitutional conservativism. john, react to that. >> i don't care about richard viguerie. i really don't care about him. what i want to say is this. mike huckabee gets diversity. he was an excellent governor, and i don't agree with mike huckabee on everything, but don't throw mike huckabee opposite of jeb bush. i think paul ryan gets it, too. >> ryan is an anti-immigrant republican. he took up all this language they've used. you know, mitt romney went on and talked about people self-deporting. when you do that and when you try to suppress the vote, i think you force people to vote. i think african-americans and hispanics said, it doesn't matter what they try to do to us, we're going -- >> john, your thoughts. >> let me say something quick about this voter suppression stuff. what the republicans did was stupid. i agree with you on that because it gets people more riled up. go after the vote. don't try to stop the vote. i think the whole thing was ridiculous, and i want to get that on the record.

>> well-said, john feehery. you're a jack kemp republican, an admirable thing to be. big tent. >> get more votes. >> it's a game of addition. >> we're watching the debate begin -- knives are always out when you lose an election. we have to expect this is going to be a rough fight on the republican right wing side. >> the country will be better off if the kind of thing john is talking about prevails in the republican party. >> i think it will. >> we need two governing parties. >> people should both be competing for african-american votes, both sides should -- >> can i say something real quick? >> because it's not healthy to have one side say self-deport to the people who don't have papers. that very much gets to the mindset of the people who do have papers i would think. your thoughts quickly, john. >> i will say that i think john boehner is going to do a good job as speaker, and we're going to get stuff done, and it's going to be good for the country because i think boehner is thinking first about how do we make this country better, and i think it's going to be good for the country.

>> i hope you're right. >> why don't you go work with him? together you could make things happen. john feehery, i hope you get a job with that guy. you and him would be great. bob shrum. thank you. >> great to see you. >> i always root for boehner to do the right thing. dirty, angry money. or should we say wasted money? the dog that didn't bark this election. what did the sheldon adelsons get for their hundreds of millions of dollars in tv advertising? here is a tweet from alec baldwin. it's been making the rounds -- you know your party is in trouble when people ask did the rape guy win and you have to ask which one. the notorious comments didn't merely embarrass republicans, exposed them. it shows too many of them think like they do. anyway, that will kill that will cost them the white house again and again and a lot of senate seats this time and next time. now that president obama has won re-election and can't become a one-term president, is there any chance republicans will actually accept him as their president and try to work with him instead of just rejecting him wholesale? let me finish with my hope the president, his party, and the party can get down and do some dealmaking for the country. this is "hardball," the place for politics. you can prevent gas with beano meltaways,

or treat gas with these after you get it. now that's like sunblock before or sun burn cream later. oh, somebody out there's saying, now i get it! take beano before and there'll be no gas.

now that president obama has won re-election there will no doubt be big changes in his cabinet. we know they're coming. secretary of state hillary clinton is expected to depart at the end of the presidential term. u.n. ambassador susan rice could replace her, could, but republicans would hit her with questions obviously about benghazi and her appearance on "meet the press" during the confirmation hearings. john kerry is another huge option, but that would open up the seat in massachusetts for the united states senate. perhaps scott brown would come roaring back and grab that one. i don't think either of these issues should get in the way of the president picking the best secretary of state. chuck hagel is said to be under consideration for defense. at the treasury department jack lew, our friend, is the favorite to replace tim geithner we hear. and we will be right back.

we might be retiring that particular logo now because it may well be that the dirty money didn't get anywhere this election. back to "hardball" for some good news for people who don't like too much money in politics. outside of mitt romney, karl rove might have been the biggest loser this election day. two days ago the political wizard spent the night on fox news denying reality as the returns came in on ohio and he couldn't believe them. wouldn't believe them. he also had a surprising lack of success when it came to the spending by his big super pac crossroads. rove convinced a handful of billionaires and millionaires to waste, it turns out, a lot of money to help according to a study by the sunlight foundation, american crossroads spent millions not only on the presidential race and mitt romney but senate races. look at his track record. connie mack in florida. denny rehberg in florida, lost. tommy thompson in wisconsin, lost. george allen, a loser. heather wilson in new mexico, lost. todd akin in missouri, lost. his only winners of the night

were dean heller, the incumbent appointed senator in nevada, and deb phish er fisher, up in nebraska. more than $100 million went to candidates who won versus those who lost. it turns out his rate of return, if you want to put this in business terms, was an anemic 1.29% return on the dollar in terms of winners and beating people he didn't like. he was asked about it, mr. adelson, on fox -- actually rove was on fox. >> yeah, look, if groups like crossroads were not active, this race would have been over a long time ago. president obama came out of the box on may 15th with $215 million of advertising over a 2 1/2 month period designed to demonize mitt romney. >> how is that for an argument? if it wasn't for his own money, romney would have been less competitive and would have lost earlier. how will that fly with the billionaires who put their money into this thing? michael isikoff knows about this stuff. he's national investigative correspondent for nbc news. john heilemann is with "new york

magazine" and an msnbc political analyst. gentlemen, you're both pros. money, money talks. bs walks. you heard the old phrase. this time money didn't seem to talk, at least not in the general election, or at least not for senate and presidential. >> we've been talking about the post-citizens united world with the super pacs, with their affiliated dark money groups and how they can collect unlimited amounts and add it up -- >> anonymously. >> anonymously -- to very little. i mean, the track record. rove's job, what he was telling people is he was going to take back the senate for the republican party. wasn't just winning the white house. the white house was going to, you know, depend on a whole lot of things, but his job, what he focused on was winning back the senate. there were others, the chamber of commerce spent north of $30 million. their rate of return according to the sunlight foundation, 5%. you go down the list of all these big super pacs, and they struck out left and right. >> let's go, john heilemann,

larger universal look at this. i heard the other night, must have been yesterday, a producer told me -- executive producer said no democrat office holder lost yesterday on tuesday. is that true? all the incumbents got re-elected. is that still there? did that end up being true for the whole night? >> i don't know if that's true, chris. >> congress people, members of congress and senators, the big office holders all got re-elected. >> i can't think of an exception to that rule. >> isn't that amazing? >> there may be one, but i can't think of what it is off the top of my head. you know, obviously it was a huge night for democrats. i would say not in karl rove's defense but just as a statement of reality, karl rove didn't pick these candidates in the senate. the party picked those candidates. part of the problem the republican party has right now, as we've discussed on this show many times, is that the far right of the party in the primary process controls things, so you end up of the selection usually with the most

conservative candidate, often extremely conservative process in the primary process, so you end up with nominees that are far outside the mainstream and often uncompetitive in states like indiana or missouri where they should be more competitive. karl rove, michael is obviously right, the senate was a huge target for him, but, again, he didn't pick those candidates. he had to try to help candidates who were flawed in really, really deep ways, and it may be true what he says, that some of those candidates, in fact, would have been less competitive than they were. he couldn't save -- some of these candidates were so flawed that no amount of money was ever going to save them. >> the moderates did so well. i look at races like north dakota, denny rehberg, they're not bad candidates. they were supposed to win. >> what john is saying was absolutely true in indiana and missouri. not necessarily true in some of the others. north dakota, montana, i mean, they thought they had -- >> josh mandel turned out to be a good candidate. >> it does raise larger questions about the effectiveness of these outside groups. now, that said, i think there's

still the question -- so, you know, the political insiders will look at that and say, see, so the whole issue of super pacs and dark money is overblown, let's just forget about it. there's also the health of american democracy issue which is still very real, and when you have the seven-figure donors, people giving -- >> can i give you the bad news now? i gave you the good news. here is the bad news. you first, michael, apparently -- i talked to a top democrat this afternoon, a top democrat. she said it still works in house races. you can go into a house race, get a candidate or incumbent who is not that well-known in not even a swing district but a beatable district, and blow them away. you can still do that. number two, it worked for -- john, let me start with you. it worked for you for mitt romney. remember, he went in and destroyed rick santorum, destroyed newt gingrich with huge amounts of super pac money. you can do that and clear the field for yourself in the primaries in the caucuses and

you can destroy house members. is that still true with big money? >> i believe both those statements are still true. look, in house races you still have -- the media markets are small enough that a relative small amount of money can provide the loudest megaphone in the race, louder than the candidates themselves. and so they can still influence those races. that's certainly true. and, look, there's no other way to explain the way that mitt romney got the republican nomination than through the kind of metaphorical equivalent of firebombing at dresden when it came to rick perry, newt gingrich, and rick santorum. the way that he won, despite all the problems with the republican base, he won through overwhelming financial force, and a lot of that money did come from restore our future, from the super pac that was backing him. he could not have been the nominee had it not been for that money. >> michael, i want you to respond to sheldon adelson. he reportedly spent at least $53 million -- there's no tax break for that, by the way -- on republican candidates. most of them lost on election night. a norwegian reporter got to him

-- i think i know that guy -- asked about that money. let's take a look at him and a norwegian reporter. >> how do you think your money was spent? was it well-spent? >> by paying bills. that's how you spend money. either that or become a jewish husband. you spend a lot of money. >> that's off norwegian tv. i wonder how the joke will translate in oslo. there are two ways in which i think this issue will return next year and be with us for a while. first of all, you're going to see a big push in the senate with the white house backing to do something about the unlimited money and to curb super pacs, to do something about the post-citizens united world. whether it can get through with mitch mcconnell in the senate and republicans in the house is unclear, but i think the white house will give a big push to that. secondly, remember, as bad as the republican super pacs did, the democratic super pacs, although they didn't spend as

much money, did quite well. you will see a big focus on who their big donors were. and there were some -- >> okay. that's one other example at work. i'm told by the pros like you, john, that one thing that did succeed in terms of big spending was the attempt -- the success, rather, in defining mitt romney early on by the white house people and their allies. >> absolutely incredible. priorities usa action, they made a bunch of really strategic decisions. they didn't have that much money relative to the larger republican conservative super pacs. they decided to go in hard into certain states, particularly ohio, where they spent the bulk of their money. they ran a bunch of ads that were incredibly -- that got an incredible amount of attention in terms of they got a lot of air time in terms of what they paid for and generated a lot of earn media, a lot of free media coverage. some of the most striking ads of the cycle were done by that group. i think the president's people would concede they hit mitt romney hard in ohio also, but it was the double punch. it was that one-two punch in

ohio of the two of them over the summer on bain, on taxes, on outsourcing and all that stuff that proved really quite effective in that race and it shows you -- it does show you it's not the bulk of money that matters. it's about spending enough money effectively, but in those cases when you do that, you can move the needle, especially in certain markets, certain states. >> mike, i haven't talked to you in a while. were you surprised by the results tuesday night? given that whole year. >> i was surprised, if you look at the final polls, how few surprises there were. almost in every case the pollsters had it right. >> you want to look at the contours of the election, were you surprised by the sort of stunning sweep we saw the other night? >> i certainly was, chris. you know, the obama people were very confident and their model -- the way they described what they were going about doing i thought made sense analytically, but they won even the states they thought they were going to win by bigger margins. they thought colorado would be a razor-thin election like

florida, and they won by five or six points. they were an incredible machine, and the fact that they were able to get african-american turnout in ohio to go up by 33%, to go from 11% of the electorate to 15%, no one on either side would have thought the obama campaign could do that, and that was the margin of victory for them in ohio. >> how many days before the election did romney know his goose was cooked, that he had to go to pennsylvania and michigan and minnesota? how early did he know he had to go for the long shots, that he was probably going to lose? >> i don't know that he ever thought that, chris. i think that they were to the last day, i think they were somewhat shocked. they really believed the electorate that would come out on tuesday night was a different electorate than the electorate that showed up. they convinced themselves the electorate would look more 2010 than 2008, and i think they believed it in their hearts and souls. i think that's part of the reason why they had such a hard time conceding. they couldn't believe what they were seeing in ohio and other places. >> great reporting. thank you, michael, thank you for coming in. thank you, john. next, jon stewart takes on karl

rove and fox news, and jimmy fallon re-creates what mitt romney might have told president obama when he called him to concede the election. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

back to "hardball." now to the "sideshow." well, the election narrative is not over really until you get the election roundup from the late night scene. first, jon stewart and stephen colbert taking on the results and karl rove's slow march to the realization that president obama had won. >> do you believe that ohio has been settled? >> no, i don't. >> is this just math that you do as a republican to make yourself feel better or is this real? >> here is what happened. i just want to get it straight, karl, very quickly. are you lying to yourself? or to the millions of viewers? math you do as a republican to make yourself feel better is a much better slogan for fox than

the one they have now. >> just because obama won these blue states up here, he's the president of all of them now? look, romney won all that red stuff. why don't we elect our president on square footage? obama won, america is done, it's over. jimmy, roll the credits. >> anyway, then there's the question, what did mitt romney say to president obama during the concession phone call? jimmy fallon had some ideas. >> hello, president obama. >> all right. >> is this your concession call or are you still busy watching fox news?

>> no, no. this is my concession call. congratulations, blah, blah, blah, you did it. >> hey, hey, hey, now, everything okay? seem a little down. >> just that i really wanted to be president. i was going to create 12 million jobs. >> well, look, look, buck up. you created one job, except it was for me. >> all right, very funny. you got me. you know, i can laugh at myself. ha, ha, ha. >> one last incarnation of the romney laugh. also, any clue what this post election tweet from a blogger with the atlantic politics wire is getting at? quote, it's perfectly reasonable to plan a transition after election, but we rarely see one -- see what the loser was planning. here goes, if you had followed the link posted in the tweet there, you would have found yourself at the presidential transition website for president-elect mitt romney after he lost. that's right. here is the what could have been home page that mistakenly went public.

even a quote from the not president-elect and the day for inauguration day listed there at the bottom. the site was eventually yanked but not before the content got out. as for what really went down post-election for the members of the romney staff, we have this nugget from garrett, the nbc news romney campaign embed. quote -- you're not going to believe this. quote, from the moment mitt romney stepped off stage tuesday night, the massive infrastructure surrounding his campaign quickly began to disassemble itself. aides taking cabs home late that night got rude awakenings when they found the credit cards linked to the campaign no longer worked. fiscally conservative, sighed one aide the next day. i hear he lost his secret service protection that night, too. up next, those infamous rape comments from todd akin and richard mourdock might have embarrassed the republican party itself, but worse, it exposed them. whether they're saying it out loud or not, the whole party has lost step with the country, and that's a big reason why they

lost tuesday night overall. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics.

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you know, my wife is a democrat, and she was so close to voting for mitt romney, but then, you know, mourdock and

akin opened their mouth and we sent them running back to the democratic party because they think we're nutty. we have the right message on the finances. we have to get out of people's lives, get out of people's bedrooms, and be a national party and that's -- or else we're going to lose. >> that's the congressman from just east of cleveland describing the gender problems that his party still faces after those rape comments from senate candidates, not senators, todd akin and richard mourdock. focus on mourdock and akin revealed neither of them are outliers. as john weaver told "new york times"sh, quote, they did not seem foreign to our party, they seemed representative of our party. wow. the senate will make history with 20 women making up the largest percentage of women ever to sit in the upper chamber. i don't like the phrase upper chamber. one of those members will be senator amy klobuchar of minnesota who is coming off a big win tuesday night. senator, thank you, and congratulations.

you're one of those people that people dare not run against, i guess. anyway, what do you make of the fact -- just the whole women's thing and the way women now tend to be democrats. you see it in california. we have two senators who are women in washington state, and new york, of course, you have a woman senator now and in the northeast. in fact, i think you've got 17 democratic women now, right? >> well, we do. we have -- we're going to have 20 women senators, which is incredible. the american public in this election, chris, sent us a binder full of women, and so we're excited to have this many women in the senate, and the women, as you know, are a cordial bunch across party lines. we have dinner every other month in the strom thurmond room, which is somewhat ironic. >> no, he liked women. i understand he liked women. >> let's not go there, chris. but in any case, i think what we know is that the american public wanted to see more problem solvers after this incredibly polarized election season.

women tend to be problem solvers, and i think that helped us as well as some of the messages that we were seeing from the other side. >> well, on that point -- >> this is a great opportunity for us to work together and put more women there. >> my wife is a professional woman, a corporate executive, and i do notice that the way men do things, a little more rivalry, a little sharp elbows, too much testosterone. as a group women are good at getting together and finding common ground and moving ahead, whether it's a club or whatever. it seems decisions come with much more fluidity. what is that? when you say you have meetings across the aisle with the republican women -- i'm serious about this. go ahead. >> well, no, i'm not a psychologist. i know we just tend to want to get things done. maybe it was tougher for us to get into that job. my favorite line is the dean of women who says we are going to suit up, square our shoulders, put our lipstick on, and get things done. that's what the women senators plan on doing.

you have also, as you pointed out earlier in the show, you have a number of candidates, including men, that won like joe donnelly in indiana against candidates that had more rigid ideology. while the balance of power may have stayed the same in washington, when you listen to speaker boehner's words on election night, you listen to harry reid, listen to the president, clearly there was a message sent from the american public. you better get your act together, extend the olive branch, and start negotiating because our economy depends on it. >> for anyone out there who thinks mr. akin or mr. mourdock were outliers, sort of oddities in the republican party, here is the republican party platform approved in tampa by all the delegates. faithful to the self-evident truths enshrined in the declaration of independence, which assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. we support a human life amendment to the constitution and, this is bigger, endorse legislation to make clear that the 14th amendment's protections apply to unborn children. well, there you have life, liberty, and property which would basically make it basically murder to have an abortion.

all in the constitution -- basically the constitution of the republican party right now. what do you make of that when you walk past republicans on the floor and realize they subscribe to that kind of thinking? where the woman has no role. >> well, i think the american public has spoken on this in states as conservative as mississippi when an amendment like that was on the ballot, the people really want to talk about the issues, the bread and butter things that matter to america. we have to bring our debt down in a balanced way. we have to move forward in this economy and train our students so they have the skills that will fill the jobs we have today. that's what people want to talk about, so even though the balance may have stayed somewhat the same, there was a change in some of the candidates. i think people will listen to that and our country depends on it. courage in the next few years is not going to be just standing by yourself giving some speech on the left or the right. courage is going to be whether you're willing to stand next to someone you don't always agree with for the betterment of this

country. that's what i heard loud and clear all over minnesota and we see in this election. >> so you're hopeful that the democrats and the republicans in politics starting with the president on down can maybe begin to cut deals in the interest of the country starting with getting away from the fiscal cliff. >> i really do, and you're starting to see some signs of that today. i think that's important as well as moving ahead with some of these other things. comprehensive energy policy, things we really need to do because there's been too much time wasted on hearings that don't matter and people trying to do sound bites, as great as they are on your show, i think people want to see people willing to work together, and i really heard it in our state. >> would you like to be president? >> i love being the senator from minnesota. that's way want to do. we have a great state. you should come and visit land of 10,000 lakes. you'd have all kind of water to walk on. >> was that yes or no? >> that was a no. i couldn't be clearer. i love being the senator from minnesota. that's my job.

>> others are talking about it. anyway, thank you. >> that's very kind. >> congratulations, senator klobuchar of minnesota. a great state which i know a bit about. thank you. let's go now to amy sullivan of "the new republic." amy, in your column in these -- about these two men, you wrote about mourdock and akin. you said they lost because they each made the mistake of trying to explain an increasingly common position by republican office holders, including paul ryan. it's not unusual for gop politicians to oppose rape exceptions, but they haven't had to defend that, at least not on a big stage. when forced to explain themselves, it's not their words that alienate voters, but the idea of forcing women to carry to term a pregnancy that began in rape. as long as opposition to rape exceptions remains a mainstream exception, the gop abortion position for republican office holders, the gop abortion problem is here to stay. you know, i just keep thinking, here is a party that's building its future on this sort of subjunctive potential situation. they're talking about an era in which we outlaw abortion but only permit it in certain circumstances and yet they're so ideologically orthodox in their thinking, they have to have a hard position on something like this.

>> yeah. well, and this year has proven i think that the jig is up for republicans because for a while they have been able to have a very hard core position that they present to their most conservative voters, say i oppose abortion in all instances, not even in the case of rape, but that wasn't really something that people on the other side, i guess, had focused on. i was surprised that everyone was surprised to hear the comments of akin and mourdock. i'm not sure what the an acceptable reason for opposing -- >> tell me why you think this gets to women voters in a political sense, not having this exception which is so way out there. >> in this particular case particularly if you're a woman it is kind of shocking to think that having gone through a trauma like being raped, then your government would force you to carry that pregnancy all the way to term. you know, it is just a violation of your own body twice, first in

the initial rape and then the act of pregnancy is not easy. i was certainly flat on my back and sick as a dog for nine months, and a lot of us do it because we really want that child, but if that child is the result of a rape, trying to force a woman to go through that is something that most women cannot wrap their heads around. >> it strikes me as a male that you're telling people, your body is important because you will bear the child even if you're raped. >> you're the vessel. >> therefore your brain, your soul, your basic human being isn't really relevant here. >> not really. now, you know, we should acknowledge that for people who are completely opposed to abortion, who think that life begins at conception and any abortion is murder, that's actually the most consistent position to take, to not -- >> as metaphysics. i understand. we're talking law here though. >> we are talking law and that's where -- >> we're talking about putting people in jail if they violate that. thank you, amy. welcome back. president obama won the election, republicans lost across the country.

is there any chance they will finally accept him as president? really try to work with that man. he's president of the united states. i like it when he says it, i am the president. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

president obama's re-election victory is less than 48 hours old, but already the jockeying for 2016 is under way. we learned today marco rubio will be making -- i can't

believe this -- his first trip to iowa. he's going for a birthday fund-raiser for republican governor terry branstad. it would be rubio's first unofficial testing the waters for the next national caucus state. the first in the nation caucus state coming up in four years. we'll be right back.

i'm no longer just a candidate. i'm the president. [ cheers and applause ] welcome back to "hardball." the democratic -- hi owned the office, gave a not so subtle reminder to those who questioned the legitimacy that he was in fact the president of the united states. the american people have unequivocally chosen obama to lead him for the other four years. here's what house speaker john boehner told abc news when asked whether he's planning to try to repeal the health care reform law. he said -- the election changes that. obama care is the law of the land. powerful. joy reid is the managing editor of the grio, and both of msnbc

contributors thank god. i mean it, joy. >> thank you. i want to talk about this. you and i have jabbered back and forth for weeks now. luckily all the that negative stuff, run against the president seemed to have very little impact negatively. it may have been inspired people to get out and vote. i've heard that from a number of people. people -- what do you think about the question whether the people -- will we still see birthers, still see people in the congress saying this guy is not president? >> yeah, you know what? we have talked a lot about this. i think unfortunately, look, obviously the intellectuals in the republican party can parse it, and they accept it. the people like steve schmidt, the operatives who do it for a living, totally get it and really understand the party's problems.

>> but i've been scouring week le standard, redstate.com and looking it comments, the base reaction, and i do sense that they're not going to get on board. they are not going to accept this man is president. they're still out there with conspiracy theories, the new black panthers stole the election. i'm still hearing that. the elected republicans, they don't respond to the intellectuals and the operatives. they respond to the same base. they are hermetically sealed. where talk radio and fox news is telling them this is not legitimate, he is not legitimate. i fear that they are still going to hold sway over a lot of house republicans. >> that is so smart. i get that from other directions, too. john nichols, that impenetrable rejection front that you hear on the radio, you heard it from rush limbaugh, it could penetrate throughout most of the house republican caucus, talk about it. >> well, i think it's real, and i think we have to understand the republican party is divided between hacks and true

believers. for the last couple years, the true believers have been in charge and the hacks have followed the true believers. the question is whether the hacks, led by karl rove, whether they seek to reassert themselves. i think in a sense the president has a responsibility here. he has to own his mandate. it's very important that we recognize this election didn't finish on tuesday night. they're still counting votes? washington state. every hour president obama adds about 100,000 more votes. sometimes tonight he will move over the line to a 3 million popular vote win, when florida is decided it's likely he will have 332 electoral votes. he will have won 26 states and the district of columbia, and he needs to talk about that. not in a pompous or bragging way, but to say, look, i won a big election here, and to you, the republicans who can listen,

as well as to the broader american people, i have a right to govern. and i think he need to make that point. he won't get some of the people that joy is talking about. that's reality. what he can do is to force those hacks, who i have respect for, it's just what they do, force the real -- >> you have a lot of respect for hacks. that's a great word. >> let me go back to joy finally, last thoughts from you. how does the president, just to be as bipartisan as we all can be, what can he do to offer an olive branch to get the better angels to say, look, let's start over, let's reset, see what we can do to get this country moving. >> i'm not sure there's a message he could send that will penetrate the base, as i said. >> how about the hacks? >> i know.

i think the hacks good et it. i saw a piece i think his owns carl's restaurants. what he was offering as a way for the president to start negotiating was exactly the same thing that mitt romney was running on. he was saying, mr. president, come to us and roll back your idea of raising taxes. come to us and come to business and get with the same tired old ideas. >> we have to pick up with later. >> i don't know what he can do. >> you can't say buy the republican platform. >> that's what they're saying. >> we'll be talking about this, you, john and i how to get this train back on the tracks. we'll be right back. ixed? progressive makes it easy, because we give you choices. you can pick where to get your car fixed, we can cut you a check, or, at our service center, we take care of everything for you. [ relaxing music playing ] [ chuckles ] -whew, so many choices. -take your time. -the service center. -okay. giving you choices -- now, that's progressive. call or click today.

let me finish tonight with this. respect the voters. that's what the people we elect

need to do now. i truly believe that politicians, the elected people should follow two rules after an election. one, respect the other people who won, they're entitled to a point of view, as you were. and two, this is the big one, respect the electorate. show favor to the side that won nationally. it's 3 million votes the president won the popular vote by as well as the presidency. both sides neat to give him their support. this means while the president needs to negotiate to get republican support, beginning with averting the fiscal cliff this january, the republican side needs to lean in his direction. the deal should be a deal in the president's direction. it needs to favor the democratic side, because the president won the election. it needs to respect the republican side, because it's the party that went big in the house of representatives, which really is an incredibly representative body and responsible to the voters every two years. i want action, i want deals struck starting with the questions about taxes and